•The deadline for eligible borrowers to request a free foreclosure review has been extended from July 31 to September 30. To learn more, call 1-888-952-9105, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET Monday to Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Saturday. Also visit: independentforeclosurereview.com.

It appears few are saying yes to those offers, which lenders were required to send out under government order. Of the 4 million people who may be eligible for reviews, only 5.3 percent have actually submitted for one.

And many of those who have put in requests, like Trevor Richardson of Mission Valley, aren’t hopeful it will make much of a difference in the end.

“If it works, it works ... I totally thought it was a long shot,” said Richardson, who was in the foreclosure process in 2009.

Richardson, 41, is among a legion of ex-borrowers who have felt strung along and slapped around by lenders. They’re fatigued and have lost trust in the same corporations that have been known to repeatedly lose documents from homeowners seeking loan modifications and improperly approve paperwork in what became the robo-signing crisis of 2009 and 2010. (You must have been in the foreclosure process between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2010 in order to qualify for a free review.)

That kind of sentiment, widely identified as “borrower fatigue,” is a key topic in a June report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. That report mainly discusses design flaws in the foreclosure-review process that may have deterred people from participating.

Government auditors maintain that the federal agencies that mandated the reviews, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, failed to carefully plot out how the review letters would be sent out and by whom.

Many borrowers have said they initially thought the review letters were junk, possible scams. Others who verified their authenticity were still turned off by the offers because they associated bad memories with the senders — the lenders.

That was the experience of Tara Goodman, who reluctantly put in for a foreclosure review this year.

“I’m not very hopeful,” said Goodman, who lost her Bay Park condo to foreclosure in 2009. “I have lost faith in the whole system ... I figured I have nothing left to lose, so I completed it.”

Goodman, 52, sought a loan modification after her husband, who was 44, died of cancer and she faced monstrous medical bills. According to Goodman, the bank said her debt-to-income ratio was too high even though she filed for bankruptcy and all of her debts were discharged.

“The second lien ... it was written off, but it was still showing on my credit report,” said Goodman, whose modification process slogged on for nine months.

According to Goodman, a retired county of San Diego employee, her condo eventually sold at public auction for $30,000 less than what she told her lender she would be able to pay through a loan modification.

“The servicers were not necessarily the best choice to deliver information about the foreclosure review,” said the government report on the foreclosure-review process. “... Some borrowers had challenging experiences working with them during the foreclosure process.

Auditors instead recommended earlier outreach to community groups instead since they have inroads with borrowers.

According to the government report, another weakness in the early stages of the review process was failing to tell borrowers what type of compensation could be expected.

Officials said those details may have encouraged more people to apply. The initial wave of letters were sent out in November, but federal agencies didn’t release details of remediation until last month.

If any errors or issues are found, then former borrowers could get anything from corrections on credit reports to loan modifications, and in the worst cases, up to $125,000 and home equity.

“Consumer groups also informed us that such motivation is important because borrowers may be reluctant to submit their request-for-review form due to mistrust in government and the fatigue of repeated attempts to resolve a mortgage-related issue with a servicer,” according to the government report.

Richardson, the Mission Valley resident who is having his Milwaukee foreclosure reviewed, said part of his reluctance to apply was the fact he didn’t know what he could expect if independent reviewers found problems.

What’s his back-story?

The electrical engineer said bank officials required him to default on his mortgage before they would allow him to sell his home for less than the outstanding loan amount, a process known as a short sale. As the short-sale process kicked off and Richardson began to get offers, the bank bailed on the agreement to do a short sale and instead foreclosed on his home.

Losing the home severely cut Richardson’s access to credit — one card’s limit was reduced from $3,000 to $250. The foreclosure could also pose problems for him and his bride-to-be now as they try to buy a home together.

“It would be nice to have my credit history cleaned up to remove that foreclosure,” Richardson said. “Do I want money? No. I ... walked away, took a hit and lost my money. But I think how they (lender) handled it at the end was pretty poor.”

Government auditors also added say that the initial wave of reviews, sent out in the fall, included hard-to-understand legalese and failed to reach out to the most vulnerable borrowers, from minorities to speakers of foreign languages.

Once people file for reviews, which can be done by phone or online or snail mail, they’re routed to an independent consultant who works for the servicer of their mortgage. So far, no one yet has received compensation as a result of foreclosure reviews.

A source close to the foreclosure-review process said the audits are expected to be complicated since every foreclosure experience is so nuanced and is accompanied by a long paper trail.

What could be a straightforward case could be muddled by timing, when policies came to be and other circumstances.

Reviewers will be looking at a range of problems, from borrowers who did not default on their mortgages to violations of U.S. bankruptcy laws. Another big category: loan modifications gone awry.

Wondering if you qualify for a free foreclosure review?

Here are the requirements:

•You were in the foreclosure process between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2010.

•The property that was in the foreclosure process was your primary residence.